Justice Rough—re: Battleford, SK, 9.ii.18 (poem)

Justice Rough—re: Battleford, SK, 9.ii.18

         Tell me I’m wrong again. Tell me I’m wrong again.

Justice ought to mean how there are no feckless accidents.

What seems like justice shows up late or not at all.

Allegedly what looks nothing like justice tried to jack

the next-door neighbours’ used pickup. Retribution

miscarries what passes for bad justice, a claw hammer

smashed through someone else’s windshield. Feels like justice

starts to take shape in blinkered loss. Seems like justice got clocked

point blank in the back of the head. What starts to feel

like justice flubs and fails to take. Surely justice sounds like

a blithe excuse for cold payback. Sounds like justice

could do nothing much worse. Surely what passes more or less

         for justice looks like a rough coat of cheap whitewash.

Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m wrong, again.